


Artificial Heart

by ETraytin



Category: The West Wing
Genre: But I probably owe Jonathan Coulton some kind of executive producer credit, F/M, Not Actually Songfic, Vignette series
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-03
Updated: 2017-09-03
Packaged: 2018-12-23 04:37:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11982264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ETraytin/pseuds/ETraytin
Summary: An album full of short stories about Josh Lyman. Not songfic, but song-inspired.





	1. Sticking It To Myself

**Author's Note:**

> Day Seven of WIP Week, the last day! Today's prompt was "Your Newest WIP." I am happy with my progress this week, I managed to put at least one new chapter on all my published WIPs, and that's saying something. For this last day, I decided to actually dig into the "Unfinished" subfolder of my fanfic drive, where all the half-finished stories and three-line ideas I don't do anything with go to percolate. After all, what newer WIP than one that's never seen the light of day before? 
> 
> This actually started as a writing exercise a couple of months ago, when I was trying to prime the creative pump after months of homeschooling and not having time to write much of anything. I'd been listening to Jonathan Coulton's 2011 album "Artificial Heart" and it occurred to me that a lot of those songs could be made applicable to situations in The West Wing. So I started writing vignettes because they are fast, one for each song on the album. I got through a few of them, outlined a few more, and then put the whole thing away for two months. Today I got them out and went back to work, wrote out two more, and now I'm posting the first five all at once. 
> 
> So basically what's happening here is these are not songfics, there is no 'diagetic' music in any of them, but each story is a short piece on Josh Lyman, inspired by what I heard in a song. I've included a few lyrics at the top of each chapter. If you want to go listen to the album I strongly encourage it, it's pretty great. Feedback is always appreciated, it's especially nice when I do something new like this to see how people feel about it.

_You don't look interested in what I just said  
If you're not listening then don't nod your head_

_I thought so, that's what I thought that_  
Someday soon this job is gonna kill me  
Dead inside, unless I kill it first instead  
and when they come for me I'm gone... 

_See all the accolades, sitting up on my shelf_  
I'm the man now, and I'm sticking it to myself  
Sticking it to myself, Sticking it to myself. 

The What-a-Shame file was at least an inch and a half thick, filled with old position papers, news clippings, tabled legislation, even a couple of bar napkins covered with scrawled handwriting about wetlands conservation. Josh could remember when they'd started the file, in their very first days in office six years ago when it had become glaringly apparent that there weren't close to enough hours in each day to do everything that deserved to be done. Donna had typed up a nice label for it and everything, filed it under W (possibly the most straightforward bit of filing in her whole convoluted system), and left it there for both of them to add to. It had helped back in the early days to feel like he was setting something aside for later instead of ignoring it entirely. Within a year or two he'd learned that the pocket veto applied to pretty much everything in Washington and if he didn't have time for something now, he was unlikely to find time later either. But Donna must have kept adding to it all this time to make it the size it was now. 

She was gone now; he'd sent her home at ten so she'd miss most of the drunks riding home on the Friday night metro. He could feel her watching him carefully these days, looking for signs that he was losing it after Carrick's defection, Leo's punishment, the president's persistent distance from both his staff and the business of governing. This job was his life, and she knew him well enough to realize that having it pulled away from under him, brick by brick, would leave him teetering. 

What she didn't know, though, was that part of him almost welcomed the instability. Josh leaned back in his chair with the folder still in his hands, staring out the rain-frosted window. President Bartlet had established a senior staff of unprecedented loyalty and tenacity, but six years was a very, very long time to work in the White House. In most administrations, senior staffers lasted two years or three, sacrificed lives and families and health in order to give the job everything they had, and then moved on to other, less rigorous opportunities. He couldn't remember the last time he'd gotten eight hours of sleep, watched a movie in a movie theater, spent an afternoon at home with nothing to do. He never saw his mom anymore, and the part of him not in denial about her living forever knew that he was going to run out of opportunities one day. He went on dates from time to time, but the one woman he really wanted...

He turned his thoughts away from that, that was territory too dangerous even for this night of self-reflection. Leo had said a long time ago that Josh would have a job for as long as he did. But that hadn't been a requirement, and it hadn't been an assurance that the job would be anything Josh would want to have. He had no intention of remaining in the office as an empty shirt, powerless and pointless, just for the sake of keeping his title and his job. Maybe he could convince Donna to come with him if they left. She seemed restless too, wanting more from her job that she wasn't going to get in the White House without a college degree she had no time to pursue. Maybe things would be different somewhere else. Maybe a lot of things would be different. 

Josh tossed the What-a-Shame folder onto his desk as he stood, some of its contents spilling onto the already-cluttered surface. It didn't really matter, none of that stuff mattered. If it did, it wouldn't have gone into the folder in the first place. He'd done as much as he could, for as long as he could, as best he could, and it had ended up with him here in the perpetual doghouse and an inch-thick folder full of things he couldn't fix. Shrugging into his coat, he flipped off the lights and slung his empty backpack over his shoulder for the trip home, wondering how many times he was going to do this particular walk of shame before he couldn't bear to take one more step.


	2. Artificial Heart

_There's blood on the bed but here in my head I'm feeling fine  
It's easy to sleep when I'm not buzzing all the time.  
So funny the way I was before,   
Once I was blind but now I see.  
Once I was him but now he's me …_

 

Josh woke to blackness, complete and impenetrable. There was a crushing pressure against his chest that made it hard to breathe, hard to do anything but concentrate on the pain. He tried to strike out against whatever was holding him down, but all he seemed to be able to manage was weak flailing motions of his hands. What was happening to him? Was he blind? Was he dead? A memory of sirens and excited voices flitted through his head and was gone again before he could make sense of it. 

One of his hands was suddenly captive as well, increasing the panic for a moment. “Josh? Josh, can you hear me?” Someone was holding his hand, someone familiar... Donna. It was Donna who had his hand, so that was okay. Some of the fear began to decrease. “Josh, can you open your eyes for me?” 

Were his eyes closed? He tried to open them, but it was much harder than he'd expected. Finally he managed partway, letting light stream in along with blurry colors and shapes. “Dohma,” he slurred, finding his voice in about the same condition as the rest of his body. More noises filtered into his ears, which at least seemed functional. Beeping and humming, the gentle whoosh of forced air. His nose felt funny. 

One of the shapes came closer, resolving into an impressionist version of Donna's smiling face. “Hey, there you are,” she murmured. She was rubbing his hand lightly now, and that was okay too. “You've been sleeping for awhile. How are you feeling?” 

“...shiddy,” he mumbled, trying to glare at her. If he'd even managed it, it didn't have much of an effect. She certainly didn't seem very intimidated, not that he'd ever really been able to do that. 

“Yeah, I bet.” She reached down and put something into his hand, wrapping his fingers around it when they wouldn't quite cooperate. “This is a morphine clicker. You can push the button if the pain is too intense and you need more medicine.” 

Josh wanted to ask what had happened to him and where he was, and any number of things besides, but first things first. He pushed the button. Almost immediately, things started to improve. The pain in his chest was still there, but he himself was floating. He could just float up here for awhile while his body sorted itself out, and that would be just fine. 

Distantly he felt Donna's lips against his forehead, smelled the warm floral scent of her skin. That was just fine too. In the distance or maybe at the back of his mind he could still hear sirens and loud popping noises, but that could wait for later. The clicker fell out of his nerveless fingers and was replaced by Donna's hand once again, but he was asleep before he remembered to ask any of his questions.


	3. Nemeses

_Being a brilliant man, going to great expense,  
Devising a master plan doesn't make much sense  
Unless you've found the one you're destined to destroy.  
Now that you're here, I don't seem that crazy, do I? _

_Could it be that you need me  
To keep you out, to run you faster?   
Promise me you'll let me be the one,  
Worst of all your enemies, pretending you're a friend to me,  
Say that we'll be nemeses. _

 

“All right,” Will announced, slapping his yellow legal pad down onto the table. “That's it. We need a new strategy. We're starting from clean paper here.” 

Donna looked up from her box of palace chicken, chopsticks still poised for action. “Strategy for what?” she asked. “If you want another look at the PNW figures-” 

“No, those are fine,” he replied, waving a hand. “I mean in general. You said it yourself two days ago, acting like we're above the fray is getting us nowhere. You got on CNN for castigating a chicken, and we got spanked in the seven dwarfs debate. We have eight million dollars in the war chest and we're still on the back foot because we've been focusing on the wrong target. Hoynes isn't the one to watch in this race. It's Josh Lyman.” 

“Don't you mean Matt Santos?” Donna countered mildly, dipping her chopsticks in search of another mushroom while Will paced the conference room. “He was the one who got on camera and went off the cuff for thirty seconds and grabbed thirty points worth of free advertising.” 

“Yeah, but who do you think told him to do that?” Will insisted. Donna raised her eyebrows, but refrained from saying “definitely not Josh Lyman.” Josh liked maverick moves, hence the chicken debacle, but an unscripted television moment like that would've made him very nervous. She'd have expected Josh to come out with some bizarre political ad or another crazy stunt to grab the free advertising, not the shoot-the-moon bareface candidness of the Santos spot. But there was no way she was going to spill information like that to Will, even if it might give them a tactical edge. No matter what Josh might say if asked, she understood what loyalty meant. In any case, Will was already answering his own question. “Josh was behind the spot, he's the one to beat in this race.” 

“So what's the plan?” she asked curiously. 

“I'm not sure yet,” Will admitted. He gave up pacing and slumped into the huge wide-backed office chair that Russell had insisted be placed at the head of the conference table. “The only reason Santos has any credibility at all is because the Svengali of political campaigning left a top spot at the White House specifically to run him for President. We don't have any way of predicting what he's going to do next, so we have to think up every possible contingency for every move he could make, and some for the things we're not going to be able to think of. I might need a bigger notebook,” he added woefully, looking down at his fresh pad of paper. He eyed Donna speculatively. “Do we have any way of predicting what he's going to do next?” 

Donna set down her food carton and leaned back in her chair. “We don't need to predict what he's going to do next,” she advised Will, trying to avoid the sneaky wriggle of guilt that seemed to be crawling its way through her stomach. “His campaign got a shot in the arm from the ad, that's true. Maybe they get a hundred thousand in donations because of it, maybe they take third in the New Hampshire primary. That still puts them in third place, with almost all the primaries still to go, not a single guaranteed winning state, and a trick that won't work again. He can't go on the air in every state and dazzle them with folksy candor and a pretty face.” 

She grinned a little when Will raised his eyebrows at that. “What? It's true. He's a young, handsome military veteran, and we're going to have to run against that. But if he doesn't start playing big-league baseball pretty soon, they'll be going home after South Carolina. And that's where we have all the advantages of money, support, and name recognition. We just have to avoid tripping over ourselves. And please god, get him to stop with the VP seal joke.” Donna tipped her head back and closed her eyes. 

“I think having it appear on Letterman finally put paid to that one,” Will replied hopefully. “We just need to get him some new material. Who do we know that's funny?” 

“Nobody's funny in New Hampshire in January,” Donna promised him. “Can I tell the advance team we're sticking with our strategy for South Carolina and Super Tuesday?” 

“Yeah, go ahead,” Will decided with a decisive nod. “You're right about this one. We already have a plan, and the plan is overwhelming force. We don't have to be above the fray if we can just plow right through it and leave everyone else behind. Let's talk in the morning about another media buy for South Carolina, a big one.” 

Donna wasn't entirely sure this was the strategy she'd have gone with, but she had to admit it was gratifying to be told she was right. She made a note on her own legal pad. “Got it. Onward and upward.”


	4. The World Belongs To You

_Because it's you dancing the planets on a string,  
And it's you who's got to handle everything  
There'll be hell to pay unless we all behave the way you want us to,  
The world belongs to you._

_From inside these limousines, the world is looking darker every day,  
And you wonder if that means when you close your eyes it goes away,   
It goes away..._

 

The motorcade was waiting outside the White House, but the Congressman was still inside, taking a few last-minute wedding reception photo ops under the watchful eye of Donna and Annabeth. Josh should've been in there too, pressing the flesh, showing the flag, but instead he was hiding in the goddamn car like a scolded child. He knew it, hated himself for it, but compared to all the other reasons to hate himself today, it really didn't seem that important. They'd already moved the money out of Wisconsin, soaked whatever they could out of the Pacific Northwest, and lined up a last-minute fundraiser to try and pour enough money into Illinois to keep the dial moving. There was literally nothing more he could do tonight except stare at the map and wonder where it had all gone wrong. 

Leo would've seen the trend toward Illinois if he'd been in charge. No matter what he'd had said on the portico earlier, Josh knew that Leo would've had his finger on the pulse of his hometown in ways that he himself could never manage, and he'd have noticed the shift as soon as it started. They'd have had money in Chicago weeks ago, and things could look so different now... What in God's name had possessed Josh to think that he could run a national campaign on his own? If he were smart he'd resign now and save Santos the trouble of firing him. 

Even if he survived tonight on the grace of Leo refusing to take the job, eventually it was going to come to that anyway, wasn't it? It was becoming glaringly obvious that Matt Santos didn't trust his campaign manager to even finish out his run for the White House, much less trust him in the way a President would need to trust his Chief of Staff. It was time to start working on an exit strategy, some lifeboat scenario so that in the increasingly unlikely event of a win, he could leave during Transition without looking like he was being forced out the door. Politics was perception, and if he wanted a career in politics, he couldn't be known as the loser Matt Santos didn't want. Which was assuming he wanted a career in politics at all anymore. Honestly, going back to Connecticut and practicing real estate law was sounding pretty damn attractive tonight. 

Attractive... Donna had hunted him down tonight, several times in fact, offering food or distraction or just standing near him so he wasn't alone in a roomful of people who were supposed to be his friends. He knew what she was doing, and knew she knew he knew. She'd done it for him a thousand times in their years together, somehow intuiting what he needed and providing it in her own inimitable Donna way, reliable as the sun until suddenly she wasn't. Her abrupt departure had undermined the last stable pillar in his already tottering world, sending him out on this insane adventure in the first place. Now she was back, but she wasn't the same, they weren't the same. He wasn't sure if he could rely on her anymore, and he was pretty sure she was feeling the same way about him. If he left the campaign and she stayed, would he lose her all over again? 

There was movement at the covered entryway, a knot of people ready to come out. Josh could see the Congressman, towering over the people around him in his genial way. Ten months ago, Matt Santos refused to run for president unless Josh was there running his campaign, and now he was on the brink of firing or demoting him for lack of confidence. Josh understood that, he really did. But who was he, if he wasn't the guy the guy could count on? Or the girl, for that matter? Not for the first time, he wondered what, if anything, would be left of him six weeks from today.


	5. Today With Your Wife

_I had a great time today with your wife under an awning._   
_We had to stop there, wait for awhile, because it was raining._   
_And we talked about you, till the storm had passed through,_   
_You should've been there..._

 

Working on a presidential campaign was a lot different than any job Donna had ever had before. For one thing, everybody seemed to be in a big hurry every moment of the day. Or maybe that was just Josh, she wasn't sure. She never really got to slow down long enough to check. At any rate, she'd had to buy several pairs of new dress shoes chosen specifically for her ability to run in them.

Today was especially exciting for her because the campaign had finally come to Washington DC, a city Donna desperately wanted to see for the first time. Josh, an East Coast native to his bones, had been shocked and a little appalled to find out she'd never been, even on a field trip. Tonight after the fundraiser, he'd promised to take her on the ten-cent tour of the monuments, even if that was all they had time for on this trip. In the meantime, he was telling her stories about all the best bars in Georgetown and all the things he and Sam had done there in their misspent intern youth.

“So we'd been at this place for awhile,” Josh explained as they scurried through the convention center they'd rented for the fundraiser. “Sam had just gotten dumped again, and we were both way past our limit-”

“Which was three beers?” Donna guessed, her heels clacking on the tiles as she kept up.

“You can be replaced, you know. Anyway, I was trying to find a taxi to take us home and I couldn't remember the number- oh, shit.”

Donna came within a hairsbreadth of running into Josh's back as he stopped suddenly. “What is it?” she asked, peering over his shoulder.

“Jenny McGarry,” he murmured, looking down at the papers in his hands for cover.

“Leo's wife?” Donna asked, confused. “I met her once in New Hampshire. She's nice.”

“Yeah, she's nice, but she's probably going to want to, you know, see Leo. And he's not here.” Josh made a grabby-hand motion and she handed him his cell phone. “Hey Leo? I just saw Jenny here at the convention center. Did you guys- oh. Yeah, that's gonna be a prob- Come on, Leo!” His voice turned to a whine. “Really? Fine. Yeah, I'll tell her.” He sighed and shut down the phone, then turned to Donna. “Wanna go get involved in some marital discord?”

“Not really,” Donna replied.

“Too bad, I'm deputizing you.” Josh informed her. “Leo forgot he was meeting Jenny for lunch and wound up scheduling a meeting with the DCCC. He's not going to be back for hours, and he wants us to send her along home.”  
Donna winced. “I don't think that sounds like part of the job at all.”

“You're my assistant, you assist me!” he reminded her, grabbing hold of her hand and pulling her along through the crowd. “And I'm not going in without a backup. You're young and cute, she might not eviscerate me while there are innocent eyes around.”

She didn't bother to resist much. “Okay, but I want dinner with this monument tour tonight.”

“Fine, but nothing fancy.” The fact that Josh didn't even bother to haggle told Donna how much he did not want to be having this confrontation. Jenny McGarry was standing near the back of the conference center, watching the action and obviously looking for someone. Josh fastened on his best political smile as he approached. “Mrs. McGarry, hi!”

Jenny smiled warmly at him, and politely at Donna. “Hello Joshua! It's nice to see you again. How are your folks doing? How's your father?”

“Doing pretty well,” Josh reported, “and Mom is keeping him on the straight and narrow.”

She laughed. “I would expect nothing less from her. She's always been a match for the both of you.” Donna dimly remembered something about the McGarry family and Lyman family being friends. She hadn't really thought about how that would mean Jenny had probably known Josh a long time. “Have you seen Leo? I was supposed to meet him here for lunch.”

Josh's smile slipped a bit. “Yeah, about that. There was an emergency meeting with the DCCC today, and the only time the guys could meet was over the lunch hour. Leo tried till the very last minute to get it moved, but he couldn't make it happen. He asked me if I could help make it up to you. There's some great restaurants around here, and you can tell me embarrassing stories about my parents.” His grin was hopeful now, full dimples. “You've met my assistant Donna? You'll like her, she treats me like my mom does.”

Donna blushed, but smiled and extended a hand gamely. “It's lovely to see you again.”

Jenny did not look at all happy with the bearer of bad news, but gave Donna another polite smile as they shook hands. “Well, anybody who can put the fear of God into Josh Lyman is someone to reckon with.” She turned back to Josh. “What did he really tell you? To get rid of me and get back to work?”

“Come on, Mrs. McGarry, it was an accident,” Josh wheedled. “He's got five million things he's thinking about right now, and almost that many people wanting a piece of him. He wouldn't even be talking with these guys if he had a choice about it, but if we don't get some money from them, we don't stand a chance. I know he feels terrible about it.” Donna jotted a quick note to remind Margaret to have flowers sent from Leo's account by dinnertime.

“He may be a busy man, but that doesn't make my time any less valuable,” Jenny countered coolly. “And it isn't as though this is the first time he's stood me up, even when he finally comes to town after a month and a half away...” She obviously caught Josh's borderline panicky expression, because she sighed and seemed to soften a little bit. “Nice restaurants, you said?”

Josh's grin was full of relief. “I can probably even find you one with hardly any politicians in it,” he promised. He offered Jenny his arm and Donna followed along behind them, making notes on how to move Josh's afternoon appointments around. Mrs. McGarry did seem like a nice person, she hoped Leo knew how good he had it.


End file.
